Beyond Odor Receptors: Molecular basis of insect olfaction

复杂的生物，如脊椎动物和昆虫，已经发育出专门的化学感官器官 寻找食物，评估配偶，避免有毒物质。对挥发性气味的感知尤其具有挑战性，因为 在湍流的羽流中，气味通常是低水平的，然而许多动物的行为依赖于忠实的编码 嗅觉感受器神经元发出的气味信号。在过去的几十年里见证了研究的爆炸性增长 在克隆了第一个气味感受器之后，进入了嗅觉系统。最初的研究侧重于理解 气味感受器的功能，描述它们的气味响应曲线，并了解它们对行为的影响。 然而，关于支持嗅觉的分子和细胞机制仍有许多悬而未决的问题。 外围，尤其是在昆虫嗅觉方面。昆虫下游的信号机制是什么 气味感受器激活？气味是如何从神经元周围间隙中去除的？非-有什么贡献？ 神经元支持细胞对嗅觉神经元活动的影响？嗅觉感受器的支持细胞有什么相似之处 或者不同于那些在感受器中调节其他感觉方式的感受器？我的实验室正在寻找这些问题的答案 果蝇的主要嗅觉器官--触角上的问题。这种多才多艺的模型生物 对于这种研究是有利的，因为我们可以利用大量可用的遗传工具和现有的 关于其定型受体和神经元组织的知识。 在这里，我们建议研究几个候选基因的功能，这些候选基因是从我们最近的 计算屏幕，并可以为现场嗅觉领域中的几个悬而未决的问题提供答案 如上所述。一个项目集中在几个高度保守的天线丰富的信号基因和它们的 推测在气味感受器激活下游的放大和脱敏中起作用。另外两个 项目侧重于非神经元支持细胞之间的相互作用和嗅觉神经元的信号传递。 其中一项研究使用候选代谢基因研究支持细胞在气味降解中的作用 我们的屏幕和一种基于RNAseq的方法来识别新的候选人。我们还将阐明潜在的 主要支持细胞类别之间的功能差异，不仅存在于嗅觉感受器中，也存在于 还有调节其他生理功能的感受器。

Complex organisms such as vertebrates and insects have developed specialized chemosensory organs in order to locate food, evaluate mates, and avoid toxins. The sensing of volatile odors is particularly challenging because odors are often present at low levels in turbulent plumes, yet many animal behaviors rely on the faithful coding of odor signals by olfactory receptor neurons. The past few decades have witnessed an explosion of research into olfactory systems, following the cloning of the first odor receptors. Initial research focused on understanding odor receptor function, characterizing their odor response profiles, and understanding their effects on behavior. However, many open questions remain regarding the molecular and cellular mechanisms supporting olfaction in the periphery, particularly in regards to insect olfaction. What signaling mechanisms are downstream of insect odor receptor activation? How are odors removed from the peri-neuronal space? What contribution do non- neuronal support cells make to olfactory neuron activity? How are the support cells of olfactory sensilla similar or different than those in sensilla that mediate other sensory modalities? My lab seeks answers for these questions in the Drosophila antenna, their primary olfactory organ. This versatile model organism is advantageous for such studies because we can exploit the large number of available genetic tools and existing knowledge on its stereotyped receptor and neuronal organization. Here we propose to study the functions of several candidate genes that have arisen from our recent computational screen, and may provide answers to several outstanding questions in field olfaction field as described above. One project centers on several highly conserved antennal-enriched signaling genes and their putative roles in amplification and desensitization downstream of odor receptor activation. Two additional projects focus on the interactions between non-neuronal support cells and the signaling of olfactory neurons. One investigates the role of support cells in odor degradation using candidate metabolic genes that arose from our screen and an RNASeq-based method to identify new candidates. We will also elucidate the potential differences in function between the major support cell classes, which are found not only in olfactory sensilla but also in sensilla that mediate other physiological functions.